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Thursday, December 31, 2009

.........and began with a reasonably tough 8km Tempo Run! The morning was hot and humid with storm clouds gathering. The aim was to run 8km at 6:29 to 6:32 min/km based on my 10km time of 63:20 at SMC in November, 2009.

The course was hilly but I tried to run at the 'effort' required for the pace if the course was flat; in other words, the average pace was slower than for a flat course. So, here's the results of my first run in 2010 :

2km warm-up in Radio Road.

Drills & strides; a drink of water & off I go...alone, leaving Virtual Partner to sleep off his New Year's Eve hangover!

This was a hard session - as it is supposed to be - in uncomfortble conditions. I was well and truly tired by the end of 8km and tempted to skip the warm-down, but I gritted my teeth and did it so as to get off to a good start in 2010!

I finished off the session by putting my head under a cold water tap in the school yard! Oh, what a feeling!

For today, and to begin another year of running and having fun.... 12km.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Lovely day here : warm but with a nice breeze..... and my last day of training for 2009!

At Chev track:2km warm-upDrills & strides

10 X 400m repeats with intervals of 100m walk, 200m jog, 100m walk

I had Virtual Partner set to run at 2:17 i.e. 5:43 min/km, based on my 10km time of 63:20. I stayed with him for all except the last couple when I decided to leave him in the dust! He wasn't smiling as we walked off the track!

I felt OK with these times & finished feeling that I could have done a few more repeats if I'd had to! Good to get back 'to work' today as I haven't done any training for the last couple of days and should have been doing some cross training.....but I wasn't!

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Medium, rather than long; very slow instead of 'quite quick'! I had 16km to run @ 6:57 to 7:06 per/km, finishing in 1 hour 54 minutes. I did this 3 weeks ago with no trouble. Today, though, I wasn't in the mood and I had too much Xmas pudding and delicious trifle at yesterday's long lunch with friends at Robertson! The morning was cool enough but quite humid after several days of good rain.

Pacing pretty good, thanks to VP's company! Before starting I had thought 3 x 1600m wasn't much at all; by the time I'd finished.....it was quite enough!

Back to the car....and it wouldn't start! Bugger! Bugger! Bugger! I was hot & tired & not smiling; looking more like VP! About 20 minutes wait for the NRMA sitting in the shade of some big pine trees.....good! Flat battery.....bad!

I learned something that I'd never heard before from this mechanic with a nice Scottish accent : never leave your keys in the ignition. I had, because I'd parked beside the oval in the shade close to the track. He said doing so for any length of time could leave something turned on or might not be fully turned off, resulting in a flat battery; I'd never ever heard or thought of that. Lesson learned! Very nice man too!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

A bit late with this report, but I was waiting for the results to come up on the website. I now have my official time of 2 hours 24 minutes 53 seconds. From the website.

I left Mittagong just after 5:00 a.m. (up at 4:00a.m!) so as to be at Rosford Reserve, Smithfield in time to do a 2km warm-up, a few light drills & strides before the start at 7:00a.m.

It's a fairly tough course....I thought anyhow! The morning was blessedly cool and I really enjoyed the run; for one thing, the course is very much like what I train on at home : hills, long inclines and a few very welcome downhills. Faultless organization by everyone working to make this possibly the best series of runs over the Summer months and into June of next year.

My program was for a long run of 20km so SMC half marathon fitted in nicely. I was able to upgrade from the 10km races I've been doing each month to the half marathon. Probably back to 10km next month, but good to be able to change around so easily.

An extremely loud shout of "Go Luckylegs!" from Cool Runner Thomo at the start got everyone off with a laugh!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

I got to Chevalier College track around 11:00a.m and it was HOT! 34 degrees here today & the same for tomorrow...my day off! The session was tough and the heat only made it tougher, but we, that is Virtual Partner and I, got through it and did the repeats just about perfectly!

2km warm-upDrills & strides.

6 x 800m @ 5:52 to 5:49 per/km

I set VP for 5:49 per/km and today I didn't try to race him, but to stay with him but with one foot out front! Today, he was the perfect coach!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Today was cross-training so, to start with I did 15 minutes jog warm-up. Followed this with 31 minutes of drills & strides in the soccer field; 8 short hill sprints on a steep grassy slope and finished with 26 minutes light jogging on BongBong & Mary Street loop.

Monday, December 14, 2009

It seemed like I'd never get to the finish! I did though, by walking the last two painful kilometres.

20km @ 6:57 to 7:06 per km.

Sounds easy enough and it was for 15km but from then on I just got slower and slower and slower until finally walked the last two kilometres. Not good enough! Took me 2 hours 35 minutes. Just one of those days....moving on!

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

...this was the first time I've run 1200m repeats.....and it wasn't at all easy! Harder than expected, in fact. Easy enough for the 'spring runner' on the left, but I don't have springs like that to run with! It is, however, very much like the way Virtual Partner runs trying to catch up and pass me; today he lost again; I was well ahead for every interval!

Sunday, December 06, 2009

This morning's long run was the first of the long runs in the "Less Is More Program" (3 running days), which, though it's much more demanding on distance/pace than I've been used to, I'm liking it so far. That's only one week though!

Today I had to run 16km @ 6:57 to 7:06 per km....i.e. finish 16km in 1 hour 54 minutes.

So....I ran 16 km and finished in 1:54.07!

Avg. pace = 7:07; Best 4:45.

AHR 118 (75%); MHR 132 (84%).

I ran what I call my 'Inkerman Road Loop'. Perfect morning : cool breeze, warm but not at all hot. Bitumen road all the way, very quiet, no traffic and a very pretty part of Mittagong. I felt the pace was comfortable and was running 6:? for most of the time except for where the hills and long inclines slowed me down in spite of making a big effort not to. At least I did put in the effort!

So that's one week's trial of running three days only. I've liked it so far and no problems with each of the three sessions...yet! I guess I might be of another mind after weeks 2, 3, 4 and more with distances and paces increasing each week!

Friday, December 04, 2009

There he was again! Same ugly, snarling expression as I sped away on today's 5km tempo run!

What I had to do was :-

Short Tempo Run 4.8km...I changed it to 5km.Pace 6:20 per km (10k race-pace)

2k warm-up. Light drills and strides. Lastly, 1km warm-down.

Virtual Partner is such fun to run with, especially not letting him get a look-in again today! In fact, I finished 50m in front. This wasn't an especially difficult thing to do, given that I was running only 5km at 10km race-pace; it felt quite comfortable actually, so VP should have known to get out in front from the start and hang on to stay there. Instead, he let his anger and frustration get the better of him once more and thus wasted effort and energy he should have been using to beat me!

I'll need to be vigilant though as the distances on each of the 3 running days increase week by week. It could get nasty!

So...results are: 5kmTime 31:17AHR 127 (82%); MHR 133 (84%).

1km Splits = 6:08; 6:20; 6:14; 6:17; 6:17

Whether or not I should have run faster - I could have - I've yet to find out!

I had Virtual Partner programmed for 5:46per km and I finished each repeat way ahead of him every time! I left him behind by anything up to 65m maximum! I was determined that the infamous VP was beaten every time so I ran as hard as I could and left poor old VP struggling in my wake!

...this is VP showing how he felt seeing me take off!

I enjoyed these 400m repeats though it was hard work and lots of puffing & grunting, but I felt fine after finishing and now.....a day off tomorrow; I told Ewen I don't know that I deserve a rest day, but I'll take it anyhow and be rested for Friday's tempo run.